No, I want to defend the truth. Sometimes the USSR did, actually, play by the rules, and this was one of those times. Remember how fanatically afraid of western invasion the Russians were, why would they want to do anything to antagonize Germany at a time they knew they could not hope to beat them? It makes sense that they follow law to the letter, so as not to give them any sort of excuse for war. But why would they care about antagonizing Romania, or the Baltic states, or Finland? Thus they acted more rashly and counter to international "law."
Why would they know that? The Soviet Union had many times the soldiers, tanks and planes of Germany in 1939 - and many of them more modern, as well. At that time, the Wehrmacht had mostly Panzer I and IIs, with a few Panzer III, all of which were inferior to many of the Soviet tanks, especially the T34s and KVs.
Even granted that they didn't want to antagonize Germany, how does that mean the Russians 'followed the law to the letter'? What law? They adhered strictly to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, that's true - and how does that mean their occupation of Eastern Poland was legal? Only if you stipulate Germany had any kind of right to cede Polish territory. Do you?
Occupying Poland was certainly no more according to international law than the Baltic states or Finland.
Nonsense. I don't care about Russia, either. I care about socialism, and by this point in history, the Soviet Union was the last remaining fortress of socialism.
Granted. I should have said 'Soviet Union' instead of 'Russia'.
Of course not. What I'm suggesting is that virulent Polish racism and hyper-nationalism (which, combined, create...what's that F word?) led them to believe that a better fate lay with someone who thinks slavs are subhuman than with evil commie Russians.
Not at all - they wanted to be free of both. Also, it doesn't really matter to the person being murdered with a bullet to the head whether he is being murdered for a Jew or as a 'counter-revolutionary'. Dead is dead.
Perhaps English isn't your first language, but that statement doesn't say "joint invasion." It says if either party goes to war. There's no mention of it happening together.
My English is easily as good as yours, so leave off the ad hominems, please. I explicitly said the word 'invasion' isn't used. You'd hardly expect that in a diplomatic document anyway, would you?
However, Germany and Russia agreed on a partition of Poland, which they both adhered to mere weeks after signing.
If Stalin had actually meant to keep Poland as a buffer state and 'protect' the poor Poles from the big bad Germans, he would never have signed such an agreement.
Either Stalin was a total idiot who had no idea what signing that agreement would lead to - or his occupation (see, I'm avoiding the word 'invasion', especially for you!) of Eastern Poland was planned and not in any way motivated by humanitarian interests.
You can take your pick. Personally, I don't believe Stalin was an idiot. Just unscrupulous.
Actually they weren't. The Polish government booked it to Romania, where they were arrested (interred is the technical word) because Romania was neutral, and allowing them to pass through would be an act of belligerence against Germany. What that happened, the Polish state ceased to have a government, and thus the Polish state ceased to exist. There was no one to negotiate the peace with, no one to retreat to the buffer state, and thus no reason for Germany to stop at the agreed-upon line. So the Russians did the only thing left for them to do: they took over the rest of the territory so that the Germans did not - or, just as bad, create some sort of Ukrainian or Belorussian-nationalist puppet state allied to them.
Go look up your timeline. AFAIK, the Polish government didn't flee until
after Soviet troops crossed the border and further resistance was obviously futile. Anyway, even if true, an interned (not 'interred', that would mean buried - talking about first languages..) government doesn't cease to exist, nor does the state it leads. What kind of reasoning is that?
Yes, because the German treatment was so much better. Such victims the Eastern Poles were.
No one - least of all me - here has said the Germans were better than the Soviets for the Poles. You're the only one constantly making comparisons of that sort.
It's totally irrelevant, anyway. Your argument that the Soviets occupied eastern Poland to 'protect' them from the atrocious German treatment is specious. You've already admitted that they could not have known at that point in time how badly the Nazis would treat Poland - nor did anyone else in the world, then, including most of the Germans themselves.
